


Our Baby is a Gift

by PoliticalPadmé (magnetgirl)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types
Genre: Doomed Parents, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Secret Children, Star Wars is a tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:27:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24173599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnetgirl/pseuds/PoliticalPadm%C3%A9
Summary: This fic was initially published to LiveJournal in March, 2006. I legitimately forgot I'd written it, just stumbled onto it randomly when I was looking for my old Marvel fics. It's the only Legends/EU based fic I ever wrote and I decided, why not repost? I edited grammar, punctuation, and format, and I added a few winks to the sequel trilogy but the majority of this ficlet was written 14 years ago. That was also pretty much the last time I read a Legends book so I honestly have no idea how in character this is! But it's short so. I hope you enjoy.
Relationships: Tenel Ka Djo/Jacen Solo
Comments: 5
Kudos: 15





	Our Baby is a Gift

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was initially published to LiveJournal in March, 2006. I legitimately forgot I'd written it, just stumbled onto it randomly when I was looking for my old Marvel fics. It's the only Legends/EU based fic I ever wrote and I decided, why not repost? I edited grammar, punctuation, and format, and I added a few winks to the sequel trilogy but the majority of this ficlet was written 14 years ago. That was also pretty much the last time I read a Legends book so I honestly have no idea how in character this is! But it's short so. I hope you enjoy.

Jacen had always been the most reserved member of his family. He was the middle child by minutes but it was enough to shape him. His older sister was fierce, dynamic, temperamental. His younger brother had been driven, flamboyant, passionate. Jacen was quiet, intense, introverted. Serious. Jacen took everything seriously.

Jaina made decisions on the fly. As a pilot she had to. Anakin always jumped into every decision with his whole heart and soul, full throttle. Those traits nearly destroyed his twin and killed their brother. Jacen never made a decision without examining each minute detail to death. Sometimes he still had to lead with his heart, but he made the decision to do so. Jacen hated to make mistakes.  
  
Tenel Ka was a warrior before anything else. Queen, friend, leader, lover. She was many things to many people. But a warrior first. She was related on both sides to an ancient race of warrior women. She was strong, proud, bold. She refused to be anything else.

Tenel Ka never backed down from a challenge. She was decisive. She could, would, and did cut things out of her life. But it was her decision. She never allowed anyone else to make her decisions, try as they might. Tenel Ka knew what she wanted. Tenel Ka always got what she wanted.  
  
Jacen remembered the moment he fell in love with Tenel Ka. Or no. It was the moment he realized he'd been in love with her all along. It felt as if he'd known her forever...and at the same time, he didn't know her at all.

Jaina had a number of prospects. She always seemed to have somebody new following her around. Anakin met his soulmate when he was a child. Jacen watched them and he envied them. He watched his parents fall apart but never stop loving each other. And he envied them. Jacen watched his uncle tiptoe around love for years before falling so hard it was like lightning struck a star. And he envied him.

He watched and envied and feared lightning would never find him. But the truth was lighting found Jacen when he was young and stupid and too full of himself, and of all his envy and his fear, to notice. The truth was Jacen's fate was tied up with Tenel Ka's from their first meeting, or maybe even before they'd ever met.  
  
Tenel Ka knew Jacen Solo was her match the moment she saw him. She didn't let on right away, she never played all her cards at once. She understood Jacen, understood it would take time for him to realize what she knew immediately.

Tenel Ka's society did not support love. Tenel Ka was expected to make a good match. The right match, but not — necessarily — a love match. Tenel Ka understood and accepted this. Still, when she met the son of a barely royal pacifist and a smuggler she fell. Hard. And that was it. There would never be anyone but Jacen Solo for Tenel Ka.

She started to watch him. She watched him with his irrepressible sister, watched them and envied their connection. She watched Jacen with his younger brother, watched them and envied their play. She wondered what it was like to have a sibling. Tenel Ka watched Jacen with his parents, compassionate and dedicated; with his uncle, the only man Tenel Ka never figured out how to read. Tenel Ka watched and envied them all. She wondered what it was like to have a family instead of a dynasty. The more she watched the more she understood what Jacen represented for her.  
  
Now, Jacen held his daughter in his arms. His daughter, and Tenel Ka Djo's.

In Allana Jacen saw so many possibilities. Her future unfolded before him like branches of a tree. Along one branch she became a politician like her grandmother, and Leia's parents before her. On another she was a pilot like her aunt and grandpa Solo, and her uncle and grandpa Skywalker. One branch lead to Jedi. He felt the Force pulsing through her, even as an infant. The brightest branch lead straight to the sky, to the stars. It was named Hero and it made him weep. The longest branch was hidden in shadows and threaded with red. Petals, blood, the glowing saber of the Sith, he couldn't tell. Beside light and dark was a branch covered in purple blooms. In his vision they lay across his daughter's brow, like a crown.

That future he didn't want for her. He didn't want it for her mother. In his heart he wanted to leave. Now, tonight. To take Tenel Ka and their daughter to a ship, pick a star and never return. Let the past die and give Allana the future she deserved. The freedom to choose her own. 

But she was Chume'da of the Hapan Consortium. She was a Solo and Organa. She was a Skywalker. Jacen feared the future that truth would give her no matter what he did. Jacen feared he was making a mistake keeping his daughter a secret. That way led straight to the darkness. To history repeating itself and destiny being revisited on the innocent, on Allana. Yet no other path was lit to them. Jacen held his daughter in his arms, unable to make any decision at all.  
  
Tenel Ka watched her daughter sleep. Her daughter, and Jacen Solo's.

In Allana she saw everything she'd dreamed of when she watched the Solos and Skywalkers at play. She saw her past and her future collide in this tiny being. Allana's lineage was neither deficit nor accident. She was a child of queens and warriors. She walked among the stars. 

Tenel Ka understood what Jacen couldn't grasp. Or was afraid to face. Tenel Ka knew who she was and knew who she must be. She was not afraid. Jacen loved her. She had a family. Nothing else mattered. Tenel Ka watched her daughter sleep, the universe silent around them.  
  
Jacen took everything seriously. Tenel Ka always got what she wanted.


End file.
